Complicated
by obedientlittlevictor
Summary: Or how maybe Auggie should have skipped Sri Lanka. It's always complicated.
1. Chapter 1

They make it two full months of traveling the world together before Natasha realizes she can't live with a blind boyfriend. Or maybe any boyfriend. Or maybe just him.

Auggie doesn't overanalyze this point too much, mostly because he gets frighteningly drunk and stays that way for days on end. He tells the front desk at the hotel to put another month on his credit card for the room, so time doesn't matter to him anymore. It's not like he has responsibilities anyway. No, he did a great job of running away from all of that.

They had a pretty good run, he thinks one night over a cold chicken sandwich washed down with a bottle of room service whiskey in his unmade hotel bed. They had done the stereotypical touristy things in DC for a week before jetting off to the Alps. Natasha always did like the cold, and December in Switerland had allowed her to get her fix. It's probably worth noting that Natasha spent most of her days on the slopes while Auggie did freelance website development in their cabin. But they were happy. Honeymoon period happy, he realizes now.

They went east through Northern Europe to see the sights and drink vodka and dance, in Natasha's case; he wasn't a big fan of dancing. They dropped down to Turkey for two weeks, Dubai for four days before the Arabic makes Auggie's nerves stand on end in memory of Iraq, then Sri Lanka for Auggie's preference of warm beaches and soothing ocean waves.

He should have seen it coming. Natasha had been on edge since declaring she felt too cooped up and tied down in Dubai when Auggie refused to go out, irritable when Auggie didn't automatically agree to go to her hometown next, frustrated at Auggie's insistence that a former CIA operative who was a big player in the Belenko shit show should not be anywhere near Russia for awhile.

Auggie had forgotten how she demanded her freedom with the same intense manner that she demanded everything else: her way.

Natasha leaves him in the middle of the night when they're at their beachfront hotel in Sri Lanka. The irony isn't lost on him. This is where it all ends for him. This was where it all began for Annie. What's with Sri Lankan beaches and significant others (lovers? loves of their lives?) racing off without a word in the middle of the night?

To be fair, Natasha did send a text message the next morning, after she had already boarded a flight to wherever her life led her next. She turned his phone on silent so he wouldn't wake up to the sound and try to stop her. Of course, Auggie tried to trace the exact location that she had sent the text from, so he could find her exact flight. Nothing. He managed to hack into every airline's system in a time so long his former self would be ashamed. Still nothing.

Either Natasha wasn't using her real passport, which was a distinct possibility, or she paid off someone to let her on board without record, which is a bit more complicated but still something she could do, or she hacked the airline after she got on the plane to erase her existence. The final option was most logical. She beat him at his own game.

It was hardly his own game anymore, though. He hadn't hacked anything since he tossed his resignation papers on Joan's desk and offered a shy, almost apologetic smile at her pleas to reconsider. Auggie had balked at her immediate and insistent begging. Yes, Joan Campbell had begged. He had shaken his head and thought of Deckard's words of not letting his life be filled with regrets. Natasha was his future, not the CIA, and he had told Joan as much.

Auggie realizes, during one of his few stark sober moments, he didn't have anything. He said his goodbyes and burned his bridges. He has nothing and he is nothing.

_I can't do this, Auggie. It's too complicated._

And with that, it was all over. A simple enough note. Natasha knew how to stay hidden when she was on the run from several governments. She wouldn't have a problem hiding from him, and he is well aware of that fact.

Minutes or weeks later, another note flashes through his mind, one he had never seen, but one he was too familiar with. Suddenly the pain is fresher than the alcohol-infused vomit on the floor next to his bed, but Auggie can't stop laughing. It's always complicated.

_Forgive me. The truth is complicated._


	2. Chapter 2

Annie is hesitant to head to Sri Lanka. After all of the shit with Ben, she had decided to write off the entire country altogether.

But after getting an encrypted text from a phone that is registered within the CIA, Annie knows that she should at least try to see what is happening.

_Mingus has fallen off the grid before, but this is something else. Sri Lanka._

Annie suspects it's Eric Barber who sent the text, but she doesn't want to call him out on it. She isn't exactly sure how to anyway, not off the top of her head, even if she did want to get in contact with him.

She and Ryan both are out of the intelligence business. It's almost surreal, how quickly it all happened. Ryan liquidated what was left of McQuaid Security, paid everyone a hefty severance bonus, and they hightailed it out of Washington.

They had planned to marry on a beach in St. Lucia, but Annie called it off at the last second. She didn't give Ryan a reason, and he only smiled and said, "Take your time" in a tone so gentle and loving that it brought tears to Annie's eyes. Instead, they spent the rest of the week scuba diving and sailing the clear waters before returning to the Capitol.

"Annie," Ryan's voice breaks the silence and Annie drops her phone to the granite counter top in surprise. "Hey, sorry there. What's going on?"

Annie tries not to feel guilty as she deftly lies, "An old friend of mine from my post-grad traveling days suggested a little reunion back in Sri Lanka!"

She almost winces at the amount of false cheer injected into her voice. If Ryan catches on to the lie, he doesn't give any indication. He steps closer and presses his hand against the small of her back, drawing her in against his body.

"Are you going to go?"

"I don't know," Annie pretends to think about it. "What do you think?"

"You should go. I know it's crazy busy here," Ryan breaks into a smile because they only thing they've done is cook elaborate meals in their pajamas and christen every flat surface and some vertical surfaces of his home, "but you should find some time for yourself."

Annie laughs at his sarcasm. The thing that Annie loved - yes, loved - about Ryan was that he always supports her, no arguments, no questions, just unconditional support.

"Well, if you're so insistent on getting me out of your house..."

"Our house," Ryan corrects automatically. Annie pecks his lips and nods. She loves his home because it's beautiful and he's there, but it doesn't feel like her own home. To be honest, nothing has felt like home in a long time.

"Then I guess I should go. I'll book the flight right now." Annie steps towards her purse to get her wallet but Ryan catches her wrist.

"I'll pay."

Annie knows that he means it. He would pay for anything and everything for the rest of her life if only she would let him. She shakes her head, because if she's going to lie to him about her real reason to go to Sri Lanka, she isn't going to make him enough of a fool to pay for it.

"Nope. I've got it. It's my girls' trip and I would like to pay for it." Annie sticks her chin up mock defiantly and Ryan laughs. They do a lot of that together, laughing. They don't have many responsibilities, so it's easy to be carefree. Laughter always comes when it's carefree.

"Whatever you want, dear. Use my airline points to upgrade to first class, at least. It's a long flight to Colombo," Ryan points out. Annie's eyes widen when she realizes she doesn't even know which city Auggie is in. Barber had only sent the country, not a city, or, even more helpful, a neighborhood.

She recovers quickly and shuffles through her credit cards before walking toward her laptop on the dining room table. "I just want to relive my college days."

Ryan raises his eyebrows and follows her. "Really now? You may want to take a shot of cheap vodka off my body, just to help you relive your college days."

Annie lets out a shocked bark of laughter. He never seemed to stop surprising her with his humor. She sets her card down and steps towards him. He meets her halfway and lifts her onto the dark wood table.

_You can lie to someone and still love them_, Annie repeats in her mind until Ryan makes her lose all coherent thought.


End file.
